


Statistical Probabilities and the Line Between Patriotism and Treachery

by TomFooleryPrime



Series: Musings and Analysis of the Star Trek Fandom [10]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Dominion War (Star Trek), Episode: s06e09 Statistical Probabilities, Freedom, Meta, Nonfiction, Patriotism, Treachery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27166417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomFooleryPrime/pseuds/TomFooleryPrime
Summary: TheDeep Space Nineepisode “Statistical Probabilities” is my favorite Trek story ever told.What it lacks in action, it more than makes up for as a thought experiment, forcing viewers to grapple with hard questions. What does it mean to be a traitor? What does it mean to be a patriot? Where is the line between freedom and oppression?In today’s highly polarized environment, this inconspicuous DS9 episode feels more salient than ever.
Series: Musings and Analysis of the Star Trek Fandom [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/755589
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Statistical Probabilities and the Line Between Patriotism and Treachery

The _Deep Space Nine_ episode “Statistical Probabilities” is my favorite _Trek_ story of all time. Don’t remember it? That’s not surprising.

There are more than fifty years' worth of articles listing the best episodes of _Star Trek_ across the various series, each full of passionate defenses. The same episodes generally top these lists, even if the order shifts around. Does “City of the Edge of Forever” or “Inner Light” deserve top billing? Or should it be “Yesterday’s Enterprise” or “Far Beyond the Stars?”

Perhaps the reason no one ever considers "Statistical Probabilities" is it’s not particularly compelling as a story—lots of narrative, very little action. Within that narrative however is a powerful thought experiment. In today’s highly polarized environment, this inconspicuous DS9 episode feels more salient than ever.

In 2020, social media fights devolve into reductive arguments where everyone is assumed to be either a nationalist or a socialist and depending on your worldview, one of those words is a dirty slur and the other is a badge of honor. Even everyday discourse outside of social media makes us turn words like “patriotism” and “treason” into weapons to suit narratives, with both sides firmly believing _they_ are the true patriots while the other side is staffed by traitors.

I get caught up in this myself and as the old saying goes, "the more you care, the more you despair." I don’t want to get into my own political views or start a “both sides” argument, so this is where I turn it over to _Star Trek_ and Dr. Julian Bashir, who finds himself caught in an impossible situation that calls into question the very nature of patriotism and treachery and shows how easily the line between those two concepts can be blurred.

A little background if you’re not familiar—in the year 2374, the Federation is made up of thousands of member planets. War is rare, poverty has been eliminated, and aliens of all different species live in harmony with each other. Then the Dominion, an interstellar military empire run by shape-shifting aliens shows up and wants to annex the Federation under its control. 

The Federation, understandably miffed at the Dominion’s plans for revoking their autonomy, tells the Dominion to kick rocks. A war breaks out. Unfortunately, the Federation is outclassed, outgunned, and outnumbered in just about every way. It’s tough to win a war against an opponent with a larger force, superior technology, and aliens who can shape shift into literally anything, from a table to a Federation starship captain, making them able to easily swipe any intelligence they want on a whim.

It’s also important to note that the Dominion, while an imperialist superpower, isn’t necessarily out to break the spirits of the people under its control, subjugate and enslave them, and then plunder all their resources while the conquered languish in famine and torment. For planets willing to peacefully submit to Dominion rule, life for the average citizen probably continues on more or less the same—people still have barbecues and go to church and do whatever they did before—they just trade one government for another. For planets _not_ willing to yield, retribution is swift and severe.

I don't know that there's a perfect historical analogy, but I imagine the Dominion being similar to the Roman Empire in that it prefers to preemptively control its neighbors and doesn't really care what they get up to, what language they speak, or what gods they pray to, as long as they pay their taxes and generally avoid fomenting rebellions. There's a lot more that could be said on this topic of how "evil" this makes the Dominion. The laziest opinion would be to concede they aren't necessarily the "good guys," but in terms of invasion forces, they could be a lot worse. Like Belgians in the Congo, Rubber Terror worse. 

And this is where “Statistical Probabilities” comes in. Dr. Julian Bashir is tasked with working with several genius “augments” to develop a statistical model to predict the outcome of a Federation-Dominion War. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take the augments long to recognize the Federation will _never_ win with its current resources. They determine if the Federation fights back, it will suffer the loss of hundreds of billions of casualties and the Dominion's reprisal for their resistance will make life very brutal for the survivors for generations to come.

However, they calculate that if the Federation peacefully surrenders, there will be no casualties and no Dominion revenge—the only thing that will functionally change is who the tax checks are made out to. Not only that, with the lives and resources saved from averting a catastrophic zero sum war, the Federation will position itself to develop technologies within five generations to successfully defeat the Dominion and re-declare independence in the future.

So the augments recommend immediate and strategic surrender. Dr. Bashir is disheartened to hear this, but he sees the logic in temporary capitulation because he’s a medical doctor and the idea of saving hundreds of billions of lives has to fit into that “first do no harm” ethic, surely. So he tells his higher ups what they’ve discovered, and you can imagine how that goes. He's reminded he's been tasked with finding a way to _win_ the war, not lose it.

So the augments’ next play is to go full WikiLeaks. They calculate that if they were to give the Federation’s battle plans to the Dominion, the war would be short, casualties would be minimal, and the Dominion would still treat them relatively well once all the member states learned to toe the line.

And this is the part I’ve chewed on for decades. When is treason not treason, or at least, when is treason the better option? 

I served in the military. I took an oath to protect and defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The idea of freely giving the enemy all the actionable intelligence they'd need to defeat my country makes me nauseated. The only thing that makes me sicker is the thought of most of my fellow citizens being senselessly murdered if I didn’t go all Benedict Arnold.

The dictionary says treason is “the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.” But is betraying your country and betraying your government always the same thing? A country is made up of people, and a government is made up of a few people who _should_ , in theory, enact policies that results in the greatest benefit for the greatest number of citizens. So what is to be done when a few people in power decide it is better to die free than live in subjugation? Sure, freedom isn't free, but could the cost ever be so high that it's no longer worth it? 

As an American, I fully appreciate that many of my fellow citizens have a lust for freedom that borders on psychopathy, but I personally accept that most of life is lived in shades of gray and not in black and white. There’s a pretty wide spectrum between total freedom and total slavery and life at either of the extremes sounds pretty bleak to me. But there’s also no apparent consensus on what even constitutes independence or oppression.

Just look at the debate over masks in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. On the one hand, you could argue being required to wear a mask is a total violation of your personal freedom. On the other hand, you could argue people should wear masks so that you can be free to live your life as safely as possible. Perhaps the truth is actually somewhere in the middle—wearing a mask is a small concession of individual freedom for the greater freedom of everyone.

I’ve thought about “Statistical Probabilities” and Dr. Bashir’s conundrum a lot in recent years. Would he be a patriot for supporting his government, even if he knows it would result in unimaginable death and suffering in the name of the theoretical ideal of freedom, or would he be a patriot for betraying his government for the sake of a practical outcome, which is saving the lives of hundreds of billions of people and ensuring the quality of their lives is bearable in the coming generations? 

The reality is he’ll be a traitor no matter what he does, but what kind of traitor is better? I have a sneaking suspicion that how people answer this question is probably a powerful predictor of political affiliation, and how _quickly_ they answer is directly correlated to how much they acknowledge nuance and introspection.

I won’t tell you how Dr. Bashir gets out of this awful pickle because _of course_ he does. Dr. Bashir is fictional and exists in a universe where everyone gets a tidy copout in the end. Us mortals in the real world are rarely so lucky and we’re doomed for eternity to grapple with impossible questions, each of us more convinced than the last that _our_ solution to this predicament is the right one and anyone who would do anything else is a traitor. 


End file.
